IslandMix

If you think well-compensated pro athletes are immune to the worldwide credit squeeze, think again.

Consider French soccer team Olympique Marseille, whose players had to pony up the cash from their own pockets just to get home after last week's 2-1 loss at Atletico Madrid in a Champions League group stage match.

When the team arrived at Barajas Airport to discover their charter flight was grounded, it was revealed their pilot's credit card had been rejected by oil company Exxon while he was attempting to refuel the plane. Awkward pocket-digging from players and officials ensued.

What to do? The players and coaches passed the hat and came up with the necessary 3,000 euros ($4,090) to buy the fuel.

Marseille Coach Eric Gerets, a former Belgian World Cup player, was not amused.

"I wanted to buy two cigars, but I gave 100 euros, which meant I was not able to smoke today," he said. "I felt as though I was in a film, a bad one. Had we won, I would not have cared, but because we lost it was a little more difficult to take."

An AFP story chalks up the embarrassing situation to an administrative error on Exxon's side, saying the company plans to launch an internal inquiry. Said team travel agent Christophe Villeneuve: "We needed to go home but Exxon were not contactable and [oil company] CLH did not have a great deal of goodwill for us either. So we had to pay in cash which has surely never been done before."

Source: Soccer coach's plans go up in smoke - Los Angeles Times